Achievement

A course in Ecological Systems Modeling previously developed by Environmental Engineering faculty was recrafted with an interdisciplinary focus to appeal to ERIE trainees from non-engineering disciplines. Focusing on the use of general systems theory to describe ecological systems and human interactions with them, the course curriculum was developed to give students a mathematics foundation to formulate, manipulate, and simulate systems of differential equations that describe common ecological interactions. Students developed projects to simulate ecological systems of their choice and related to their research interests. Two ERIE trainees from Geography enrolled and performed well in this course, amidst the perspective of engineering and mathematical descriptors of ecosystems interactions. The interdisciplinary course received a permanent course number from the home department and will be available as an elective course for ERIE trainees in the future.